Steady
by NeverDreamsOfMe
Summary: "I fell against his chest, against the one person who could make me feel remotely human again." Barbara's frame of mind after the finale. Oneshot.


Finished "Birds of Prey" again and thought I would finally write this XD Enjoy.

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_Would it flip a switch somewhere deep in your psyche to know that we kissed, Wade and I?_

A switch was flipped in me after that final fight. I didn't want to admit it, though, not to anyone. I was supposed to be the strong one, the leader.

After that night, I wasn't.

I had held it together for as long as it took to get in, fight, and secure the Clocktower. I had control of myself up until the moment I bent Harley over the kitchen railing, my escrima stick at her throat. A terrible rage rushed and roared through me, obliterating all rational thought, until only one word was left: "Kill."

If it hadn't been for Helena, if I hadn't knocked her out and then collapsed myself, I could have done it.

It scared me, but only for the instant it took for me to hit the floor, to know that I _would_ have done it.

_How about if I told you I stabbed him in the heart?_

For days, I couldn't get out of bed. I stared at the ceiling, driving myself mad imagining the million ways Harley could have killed him, imagining the million ways he could have died if it weren't for her, imagining the million different ways they would have kissed. Weak, worn out tears constantly trickled down my cheeks. The hollow in my chest was too raw to allow sobs to escape. Screams I would have let out when I woke from constant nightmares simply reverberated off my ribs and died on their way up my throat.

The others tried to talk to me, but I could never really hear them, let alone say anything back. Eventually they left. Dinah was mildly annoying, shaking me awake every morning asking if I was going to school. I always shrugged her off and rolled over, fighting back fresh tears as I fell asleep again. There was no point to school, not to the job, not to anything.

Not without him.

_Does it bother you that my lips were the last his touched?_

It did bother me. Everything that was and that could have been bothered me. I wondered, too, what would have happened if I'd never let him into the Clocktower. If I'd never let him see me. If I'd never even met him. Often I thought that would have been best, if we never knew each other.

None of this would have happened.

At times the rage returned in full force, but in short spurts that shot through me and left me feeling drained afterwards. Why hadn't he listened? What else could I have done to make him stay away from me? Why couldn't he have taken hint after hint?

Let the city burn to the ground.

Let me sink into a sleep I'll never wake from.

Let me have just one more minute with him, to tell him how sorry I am that he ever met me, to beg for his forgiveness.

_Would that do it?_

"Barbara," Helena's soft voice, her tentative hand on my shoulder, broke my stupor. I moved away, clutching his pillow. His scent still clung to it, but it was fading. If I held onto it, if I kept thinking of him, it wouldn't disappear.

"Barbara," she insisted gently, "There's someone here to see you." Impossible. No one would want to see me. There was no one I wanted to see, anyway.

"Babs?" My whole body stiffened, my eyes shot wide open to stare disbelievingly at the wall. The voice I heard now was just as impossible as hearing the voice I so wanted to hear, but never would again.

Then, I never heard I would hear this voice again, either.

"It's me, Babs." The voice was closer now. Footsteps circled the bed. A pair of legs entered my vision, then a chest clothed in a leather jacket, then a face. A face dear and familiar and nearly forgotten. Tears immediately spilled down my cheeks. His blue eyes softened in compassion as he stretched his arms out and scooped me up. I fell against his chest, against the one person who could make me feel remotely human again.

"D-Dick," I managed, voice rasping with disuse, sobbing pathetically.

"Shh." He lowered until he was sitting on the bed, rocking me back and forth. I clung to his jacket as fiercely as I had been the pillow moments before. His arms felt warm and safe and almost like an insult to Wade's memory.

"I've got you," Dick murmured, continuing to rock. I was too tired to follow that train of thought. I dismissed it, closed my eyes, and let Dick's body warmth seep into mine, let his solid chest steady me.

"I've got you."

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This was one of those things that was kicking around in my head for a while but never wrote because I knew it would break me 8D Forever angry there was only the one season. Thanks so much for reading; please review!


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